Vanished

OAKMONT, Pa. -- When it was all over, Tiger Woods stood next to the new U.S. Open champion and tried to smile. You didn't have to read his mind because everyone shared the same thought, whether you watched from the stands or from your couch. Tiger just lost the U.S. Open to this guy? It's true, Angel Cabrera - Argentina's John Daly - took the trophy home, beating the world's No. 1 golfer by a single stroke at Oakmont Country Club. And for the second straight year, the most interesting thing about the U.S. Open was not who won, but who lost.

In her studio at Mill Centre, Charlene Clark talks about her paintings and the people she's painted and those who look at them. Among other things, she's a kind of personal historian for residents of Baltimore and Ocean City and lots of the rest of Maryland. She paints the places that live in their memories. "They're always telling me stories," Clark says. "Constantly." "One year at Artscape a man pointed to my Edmondson Drive-In painting and yelled, `I lost my virginity there.' " The Edmondson Drive-In is gone now. Indeed, lots of the scenes captured by Clark have passed.

One can't help but question the wisdom of launching yet another serialized drama this year after the costly implosions of more than a dozen such tales, including Six Degrees (ABC), Kidnapped (NBC), Smith (CBS) and Vanished (Fox). Yet tonight, in the next-to-last week of the network season, ABC introduces Traveler, a thriller about three graduate school friends caught up in a terrorist bombing and manhunt in New York City. The network is even showcasing the series in the middle of May sweeps in the hour after Grey's Anatomy, one of the most popular shows on network TV. And this for a show that failed to make ABC's fall lineup.

Just down the street and around the corner from my home is a little patch of paradise next to the Potomac River and the C&O Canal National Historic Park. Its sunny glades edge up to a clear, crawfish-filled creek that rushes around islands of perfect skipping stones. Its woods echo with the call of pileated woodpeckers and the bark of foxes. It is a place my family cherishes, and we visit often for picnicking, hiking, fishing or roasting marshmallows.

A major source of health insurance for people who work for themselves has all but disappeared, casting thousands of contractors, freelancers and solo practitioners into the ranks of the uninsured with little hope of obtaining new coverage. Health plans offered by professional associations once were havens for millions of people who couldn't obtain coverage anywhere else. But, as medical costs have soared, groups representing professions as varied as law and golf have been forced to stop offering the benefit or have been dropped by insurers.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- All second half, Jamaal Tatum had carried Southern Illinois on his 6-foot-2, 175-pound frame. After a cold first half, he had kept the Salukis in the game in the second period with 17 points. Then, with just 10 seconds left, he got the shot he wanted and the Salukis needed to tie the game - an open three-pointer. He missed it, and a magical season for Southern Illinois was over with a 61-58 loss to top-seeded Kansas in the West Regional semifinals last night. "The last shot I took, I practiced ... late at night, early in the morning, between classes," Tatum said.

Farming has been a way of life in Maryland since the first European settlers set foot on St. Clements Island in 1634. But it is a tradition and a lifestyle that has been disappearing from the landscape at an alarming rate in recent decades. Since 1970, Maryland has lost more than 36 percent of its farms and nearly 34 percent of its farmland. The state's farms and farmland have been vanishing at a rate that is nearly four times the national average. The same is true in neighboring states, especially Delaware, which has lost more than 40 percent of its farms over the past 36 years.

When Angie Dailey feared for her eldest son's safety as Tropical Storm Isabel neared, she meant that she worried about a young driver being trapped in a fierce storm. It didn't occur to her that he'd be shot beside the car that he loved, and that hours later she'd be looking from the window of her Severn living room at the vacant space where the car had been parked, as rain bathed the blood-stained street. That was Sept. 18, 2003, and the shooting and abduction of the 19-year-old was a blip amid the crush of storm news.

The only current photo of the boy is not even of him. It's an age-progressed digital image of what Garnell Moore might look like now. Garnell hasn't been seen in at least four years, since he was about 7. In the eyes of the Baltimore police detectives who investigated 298 missing-persons cases last year, he is the one person who has "completely vanished." Even when relatives knew where he was, Garnell was barely under anyone's care. His parents fell out of his life early. The aunt who became his default guardian never enrolled him in school, and he never came to the attention of any child welfare agency.

BEAUFORT, Mo. -- A 13-year-old boy who vanished near his home five days ago was found alive about 60 miles away in a suburban St. Louis home, along with a 15-year-old boy who had been missing since 2002, authorities said yesterday. The boys were found in a Kirkwood home belonging to Michael Devlin, 41, who has been charged with kidnapping, Sheriff Gary Toelke said. The sheriff said both boys appeared unharmed. William Ownby, who goes by Ben, appeared dazed as he walked into the sheriff's department, where he was reunited with his family last night.